Patricia Yaeger, in her “Introduction: Dreaming of Infrastructure” (2007), suggests, “[f]or the sake of those displaced from country to city, or from place to place in the same city, we must recognize that for all theory’s talk of urban individualism, alienation, and economic flows, the city is above all a place that gives shelter. It must be nurturing for its inhabitants to survive” (18). According to this standard, many cities in today’s world fail to meet the obligation of providing shelter. Indeed, more often than not, the infrastructures of shelter in the city are insufficient, contradictory, or even threatening to its inhabitants. In this course, we will study how literature responds to the city as a failed or disappointing shelter.
This course will include literary examples from major periods ranging from the medieval through the early modern, the 18th century, the 19 century, to the 20th century and our contemporary (the 21st century). In addition to reading critically the city in literature, students will be encouraged to produce a pie e of creative assignment relevant about their urban experiences or relevant to their life as a city dweller.
The city and literature, shelter, infrastructures, urban planning, hospitality, home and morality, community, contact zone, urbanity, urban spaces, progress, the flâneur etc.
(i) A primary objective is to provide the students critical apparatus for reading and rereading the city. Theoretical models of the city in peaceful terms, such as community and shelter, will be put into questions, by introducing the “full-blooded” or “thick” notion of the city, including the contact zone (Mary zlouise Pratt), divided city and dual city (Sherry Simon).
(ii) A parallel objective is to encourage the students to develop their own creative responses to urban experiences outside the classroom.
(iii) Students will also learn the main features of different literary devices and strategies. They will appreciate from this course the importance of studying, reading, and writing literature.
(iv) students will acquire a basic understanding of literary history and recognize the evolution and emergence of new forms and models in writing (about) the city in literature.
We will meet every week for a consecutive 3-hour session. Each meeting will consist of lecture, class discussion, short presentation (casual sharing) from students, writing workshop, and/or creative project workshop.
Assessment
1. Participation 10%
2. Individual improvisation* 15%
3. Creative writing 35%
4. Final critical paper 40%
*Please refer to the respective assessment component guidelines for more information (to be uploaded on Moodle). Here is a brief introduction to individual improvisation: throughout the course, each student will be assigned one improvisation session (approximately 6 of these sessions across the semester). As an improvisation, it is part of the design of this assessment component that students could hardly develop the content or outline of it well in advance. To prepare for this assignment, students are expected to actively and closely read the reading materials for the week of their assigned improvisation session. In each improvisation session, each assigned student will be given a unique topic related to the reading materials of that week. A topic can be a question, a scenario, or an idea etc. Each assigned student will then improvise their response/solution to, and/or interpretation/performance of, the given topic. Students may also choose to explain/justify their improvisation at the end. This will ideally lead to class discussion surrounding the topics and reading materials. Students’ performances will be assessed based on how well they understand the reading materials of the week, creativity, as well as the insight they provide in their improvisation.
Excerpts from a wide range of literary texts will be available via Moodle.
Students are encouraged to obtain a copy of the following books (subjected to minor changes):
Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
Rawi Hage. Cockroach.